It looks like several companies are learning what happens when you mess with the internet - and they're learning it the hard way. Several major companies have been hit by the collective powers of Anonymous after 4chan launched several distributed denial-of-service attacks. What many have been predicting for a long time now has finally happened: an actual war between the powers that be on one side, and the internet on the other. Update: PayPal has admitted their WikiLeaks snub came after pressure from the US government, and Datacell, which takes care of payments to Wikileaks, is threatening to sue MasterCard over Wikileaks' account suspension. Update II: Visa.com is down due to the attack. Update III: PayPal has caved under the pressure, and will release the funds in the WikiLeaks account.

Would you be OK with me obtaining your name and social security number and releasing it on the internet? After all, that's simply government information, everyone has a right to see it, right?

Secondly, Assange admits to having a stolen copy of private emails of private corporations, and says he will release them as well. So the excuse that "All government information wants to be free" (which I don't buy, nor should you, even just based on the Social Security number example I gave above) doesn't even apply to Assange's operation. He'll release private info of private citizens if he feels like it.